Page 469 - Guildhall School Coverage Book 2020/21

Dinis is the founder and artistic director of the Portuguese
ensemble, Orquestra XXI, and in 2018 was appointed the first-
ever assistant-conductor of the Monteverdi Choir and
Orchestras working closely with Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Dinis has
now moved his base to the North-East, and I recently caught up

with him by Zoom.

Berlioz: Les nuits d'été - Dame Sarah Connolly, Royal Northern Sinfonia
Dinis Sousa at Sage Gateshead, April 2021 (photo taken from live-stream)

I asked him first how he was enjoying the weather, as compared to his native Portugal and he
assured me that the East coast can be the sunniest part of England, sunny but cold, and he hoped
that the weather would not be miserable all the time. Though he added that his Mum had told him
that it was currently freezing in Portugal too. And, after all, he has not moved to the North-East for
the weather!

Before this year, Dinis had conducted RNS in two programmes, to launch the orchestra's Beethoven
2020: The Next Generation series in Carlisle and Middlesbrough in January 2020, and more recently
at the helm in a concert of Stravinsky, Mendelssohn and music by the young American
composer Caroline Shaw, as part of the Sage Live 2020 series last Autumn. But even before then, he
loved the way the orchestra played, their energy in live performance. From the first moment of
conducting Beethoven with them he loved it, there was an energy and a style in the rehearsal room
which affected him straight away, a really good energy and rapport. The way each player makes
music appeals to him; they love music and playing in rehearsal so that in breaks during rehearsals
and even after concerts have finished, players want to talk about the music.

The orchestra's previous two music directors have been instrumentalists (violinist Thomas
Zehetmair and pianist Lars Vogt), so Dinis represents something of a change. But he is also a pianist
and has directed concerts from the keyboard. Playing the piano will be an important part of his role